concertante

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A concert for two or more principal instruments, with orchestral accompaniment.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A concert for two or more principal instruments, with orchestral accompaniment. Also adjectively.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

In music, agreeing; harmonious.

n. In music: A composition suitable for a concert.

n. A composition for two or more solo voices or instruments, with accompaniment for the organ or orchestra, so constructed that each of the solo voices or instruments comes into prominence in turn.

n. A composition for two or more solo instruments without orchestra.

An old term used to designate orchestral parts or instruments that were employed throughout a piece: opposed to ripieno parts, which were used only at intervals for fuller effect.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Italian, originally present participle of concertare ("to form or perform a concert").

Examples

The "Symphony No. 4" or "Symphonie concertante for Piano and Orchestra," depending on how it's billed, is one of the composer's final works and it has the sound of everybody from Carl Nielsen to Bartok in it, but the voice is definitely its own, and the wonderful performance made me want to go to Amoeba Records on a Szymanowski buying spree.

The following year he returned to Paris, where he was made solo violinist to the First Consul, and it was at this period that he gained his greatest success, when he played with Kreutzer a duo concertante of the latter's composition.

Le Gros purchased the two overtures from me and the sinfonie concertante, which he thinks exclusively his own; but this is not the case, for I have it still fresh in my head, and mean to write it out again as soon as I am at home.

As, of course, I have no power to compel him to have it transcribed and performed, I said nothing; but I went to the concert on the two days when the sinfonie was to have been performed, when Ramm and Punto came to me in the greatest rage to ask me why my sinfonie concertante was not to be given.

The first good opportunity I have, I will send you this sinfonie concertante, and also the "School for the Violin," some pieces for the piano, and Vogler's book ( "Ton Wissenschaft und Kunst"), and then I hope to have your opinion of them.